Publishing Strategy
- Peer-Review Procedure
The journal’s peer-review procedure adheres to the guidelines issued by the Ministry of Science and Higher Education. It applies to scholarly articles and review articles submitted for publication. Book notices, reports, and reviews fall outside the scope of this procedure and are subject to internal evaluation by the Volume Editor and the Editorial Board. The peer-review form and the criteria governing the acceptance or rejection of submitted manuscripts are publicly available on the journal’s website. Authors submitting manuscripts are required to declare that their work presents original research, has not previously been published, either in whole or in part, and is not being considered for publication by another journal. Upon receipt of a manuscript, the Editorial Board conducts a preliminary assessment of its suitability for the journal’s thematic scope and its compliance with the editorial and formatting requirements specified in the “For Authors” section of the journal’s website. The preliminary assessment may take several weeks. Manuscripts that fail to meet these criteria are rejected at this stage of the evaluation process. Manuscripts accepted by the Editorial Board are anonymised and forwarded to the Volume Editor, who submits them for evaluation by two independent reviewers selected from the list published on the journal’s website. As the need arises, the Volume Editor may also appoint reviewers from outside the list, which is updated at least once a year. Reviewers are appointed to evaluate individual articles rather than the volume as a whole. The Volume Editor ensures that reviewers have no professional affiliation with the university with which EDUKACJA ETYCZNA is affiliated and that no conflict of interest exists. The peer-review process is conducted in accordance with the principles of confidentiality and anonymity. The identities of authors and reviewers remain undisclosed to one another under the double-blind peer-review procedure. The review process normally takes approximately two months. This period may be extended if a third reviewer must be appointed during a second round of review, initiated when one reviewer recommends acceptance of the manuscript and the other recommends its rejection. Only manuscripts that have received two positive reviews are eligible for publication. Reviewers are required to submit their reviews in either Polish or English and to include comments on the originality and scholarly merit of the manuscript under review. Reviewers must treat all manuscripts submitted to them for evaluation as confidential and must not use any of their content for their own research before publication. Members of the Editorial Board are likewise prohibited from using submitted manuscripts or any content therein for their own research prior to publication.
Reviews are submitted in writing using a prescribed review form and include an unequivocal recommendation regarding the conditions for the manuscript’s acceptance for publication. Reviewers should also provide detailed recommendations for improving the scholarly quality of the manuscript. The identities of the reviewers remain undisclosed. Authors are notified in writing of the outcome of the review and are given access to the substantive comments provided by the reviewers. Where revisions are required, authors must implement them within the deadline set by the Volume Editor. Should an author disagree with a reviewer’s comments, they must submit a written response providing a reasoned justification for their position. Having addressed the reviewers’ comments, the author is required to submit a revised version of the manuscript and complete the author declaration. The Volume Editor is responsible for overseeing compliance with the peer-review procedure. Should an author appeal a decision made by the Volume Editor, the Editor-in-Chief shall render the final decision. The Volume Editor may not act as the author or co-author of any article published in the journal volume under their supervision. To ensure the authenticity and originality of published texts, authors are required to specify in the author declaration the individual contributions of all persons involved in the preparation of the manuscript, including each co-author. This procedure is intended to prevent scientific misconduct, including plagiarism, self-plagiarism, ghostwriting, and guest authorship. Should unethical practices be detected, the Editorial Board notifies the institution with which the author is affiliated and withdraws the manuscript from the publication schedule. The Editorial Board reserves the right to withdraw a manuscript from the publication process on grounds of research misconduct, violations of publication ethics, or evidence that the manuscript has previously been published.
Review reports and author declarations are retained by the journal secretary under conditions of strict confidentiality.
- Anti-Plagiarism Procedure
To prevent plagiarism, the Editorial Board of EDUKACJA ETYCZNA conducts plagiarism screening procedure using the plagiarism detection system provided by UKEN Scientific Publishing House in Kraków. In each case, the system generates a similarity report. In accordance with applicable publication ethics standards, plagiarism, self-plagiarism, ghostwriting, guest authorship, and the undisclosed use of artificial intelligence tools are prohibited. Plagiarism occurs when an author uses another author’s work without appropriate permission, acknowledgement, or attribution. The following practices are considered plagiarism: copying material without citation; combining material from various sources and presenting it as one’s own; failing to reference the sources used; and reproducing one’s own previously published text without appropriate citation. Plagiarism constitutes an infringement of an author’s moral rights and is punishable under applicable law. It involves appropriating another person’s work, in whole or in part, and presenting it as one’s own. If plagiarism is detected, the Editorial Board informs the institution with which the author is affiliated, as well as the individuals whose work has been plagiarised. The Editorial Board undertakes to withdraw any manuscript found to contain plagiarised material from the publication process. Whenever authors use generative artificial intelligence tools, such use must be disclosed transparently. AI tools may not be listed as authors or co-authors of a publication. Authors who have used generative AI in preparing an article are required to complete and sign a declaration concerning such use.
- Personal Data Protection Policy
The personal data and email addresses of individuals involved in the peer-review and publication processes are processed by the Editorial Board solely for purposes related to the journal’s operation and will not be disclosed to third parties or used for purposes unrelated to the journal’s activities. The University of the National Education Commission in Kraków, with which the scholarly journal EDUKACJA ETYCZNA is currently affiliated, processes personal data in accordance with applicable data protection laws and regulations. Although the provision of personal data is voluntary, failure to provide the required information will prevent the publication process from proceeding.
- Open Access Policy
The scholarly journal EDUKACJA ETYCZNA provides open access (OA) to its published content without financial, technical, or legal barriers, in keeping with the principle of the unrestricted exchange of scholarly knowledge. The Open Access Policy of UKEN is governed by Rector’s Order No. R.Z.0211.70.2024. The journal EDUKACJA ETYCZNA does not charge authors any fees for manuscript submission, peer review, or publication. Articles are made freely available to readers immediately upon publication, without requiring registration or login.
- Copyright and Licensing
Submission of a manuscript to the Editorial Board of EDUKACJA ETYCZNA constitutes consent to making the manuscript and its metadata available under the terms of the licence adopted by UKEN. Authors retain full copyright in their work. Upon publication in EDUKACJA ETYCZNA, they grant third parties permission to use their work under a Creative Commons licence. Authors are also entitled to deposit copies of their articles published in EDUKACJA ETYCZNA in other repositories. Readers may read, download, copy, distribute, and link to the full texts of articles published in EDUKACJA ETYCZNA for non-commercial purposes, without prior permission from the publisher or the author, subject to the following conditions:
- the name(s) of the author(s), the article title, the volume number, the year of publication, and the page number(s) of the cited article must be provided
- the DOI of the cited article must be provided.
- Ethical Standards
The Editorial Board of EDUKACJA ETYCZNA is committed to adhering to the ethical principles recommended by the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) and the guidelines set out in the Code of Conduct and Best Practice Guidelines for Journal Editors. It is committed to maintaining the high scholarly quality of articles published in EDUKACJA ETYCZNA, ensuring an impartial peer-review process, and preventing unethical practices such as plagiarism, self-plagiarism, ghostwriting, and guest authorship. The Editorial Board bases its decisions to send manuscripts for peer review and to select reviewers exclusively on scholarly merit. These decisions are made without regard to the author’s race, ethnic origin, gender, sexual orientation, religious beliefs, nationality, social status, or worldview. In the peer-review process, the Editorial Board adheres to the double-blind peer-review procedure and takes measures to prevent potential conflicts of interest between reviewers and authors. It undertakes to preserve the anonymity of both parties by not disclosing authors’ identities to reviewers and reviewers’ identities to authors. The Editorial Board is also committed to upholding the confidentiality of personal data.
